Book description
On the basis of an examination of the colonial mercury and silver
production processes and related labor systems, Mercury, Mining, and
Empire explores the effects of mercury pollution in colonial
Huancavelica, Peru, and Potosí, in present-day Bolivia. The book
presents a multifaceted and interwoven tale of what colonial
exploitation of indigenous peoples and resources left in its wake. It
is a socio-ecological history that explores the toxic
interrelationships between mercury and silver production, urban
environments, and the people who lived and worked in them. Nicholas A.
Robins tells the story of how native peoples in the region were
conscripted into the noxious ranks of foot soldiers of
proto-globalism, and how their fate, and that of their communities,
was-and still is-chained to it.
"Overall, this is a fantastic book that brings together
environmental, labor, and colonial history, confirming the
contributions of environmental studies to understanding the past....
Highly recommended." -Choice
Nicholas A. Robins is a lecturer in the Department of History at
North Carolina State University. He is author of Native Insurgencies
and the Genocidal Impulse in the Americas (IUP, 2005) and editor (with
Adam Jones) of Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in
Theory and Practice (IUP, 2009), among other works.
